


Gere Curam Mei Finis

by quiverby



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Gen, Holt Family, colleen holt needs a freaking hug, dealing with grief
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 22:25:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12094761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quiverby/pseuds/quiverby
Summary: Once her family is gone, Colleen isn't sure what to do with herself.





	Gere Curam Mei Finis

Things take time. That’s all she’d ever been told. They never told her even the official story of the so-called crash until she heard it on TV. She didn’t even get the legendary ‘we’re sorry’ letter with some kind of platitudes. Nothing. When she finally stomped into the Garrison to demand answers from Iverson, that’s when the platitudes actually begun. The space program was sorry, but these things happen. Human error happens all the time and at the very least, they had been able to send back some important information during their months-long journey. Human error, her ass. There was no way that Takashi would have made an error so devastating that it would have crashed the entire shuttle and killed everyone. Sam was a better co pilot than that. And neither of them, even when drunk or starving would have let Matthew anywhere near the controls. She kept her own counsel, however, going home to try to comfort Katie instead of verbally tearing Iverson the new orifice that he deserved for the cover up.

As time passed, it wasn’t any easier. Katie was restless, staying up for all hours scanning the skies for who knows what, scanning radio waves for any hint of what happened. Colleen tried to move on, but everywhere she turned, someone was trying to comfort her, or there was some reminder or another of her husband and son. It wasn’t long before Katie decided to enter the Garrison under a fake name. How she accomplished that, Colleen decided it was better not to ask. In a way, she wasn’t surprised that before long, there was yet another story on the news about three Garrison cadets disappearing into the desert and presumed dead. 

Colleen had never wanted to go to space as much as she did in that moment. If Katie had left without warning, that must have meant that she had a lead on something, which meant there was a tiny sliver of hope for Colleen. She did a bit of poking, a bit of research of her own, and heard a rumor running through the Garrison that the pilot of the Kerberos mission had returned on a crashed alien spacecraft with some strange prosthetic arm. It was almost unbelievable… until she realized that would be one of the few things that would be a solid lead for Katie. If Takashi was there, he had to know what had happened to Sam and Matthew, right? 

Even more time passed, and as much as Colleen tried to keep her chin up, it was almost impossible. The last straw came when she got the mail one day, and there was a box with two medals and two certificates. The Congressional Space Medal of Honor, awarded to Samuel and Matthew Holt for bravery and determination in space exploration. Staring at the medals, she collapsed on her knees in the living room and finally cried. Two bits of metal and some paper, for everything that Sam was to the Garrison and everything that Matthew was going to be to the scientific community. Part of her wanted to start a fire in the back yard and just pitch everything in it. Another part of her wanted to stomp into the Garrison with the medals to throw them in Iverson’s face and demand to know what happened to Katie. The real story, not the one told to the press to save their own asses. 

A moment passed, and then she stood up, not to stomp away in anger, but to walk upstairs. Gingerly, she put Matt’s medal on his bed, along with the certificate. Sam’s went on his dresser, beside the things he used every day. They were coming back. Katie believed that, and she had to as well. And when they were back, they’d want their medals, if for nothing else than to stomp into the Garrison, decorated and tell Iverson to shove it. 

She just hoped that day would come sooner rather than later.

**Author's Note:**

> The title of this work is from the Latin Requiem mass and means _Take Care of my End_


End file.
